General

Hey! I mean Long Slow Distance exercise! I’m talking about running.

I spent quite a few years running. I did it for most of my late twenties. I loved it, especially trail running. I believed it kept me fit. I ate and drank whatever I wanted and just ran the miles to keep any sign of fat off. Things seemed to be just grand.

As time went on (about 5 years of this), I started to wonder why my back was hurting. Also, I found I had knee pain…every time I would kneel to pick up kid’s toys and especially when I ran.

In about Aug 2000, after I had finished a solo bike trip through Alaska, my back was in terrible shape. I ran when I could, but ended up having back surgery in 2002. I generally held off on the running until about 2 years after the surgery. As my back problems persisted, my frustration led me to learn how to train better.

While in Personal Training school, I got deep into the mainstream thinking on endurance exercise. While my “cardio” time was only about 20 min 4 days a week (of mostly interval type) and my weight lifting was varied, my body weight stayed the same except my body fat percentage was decreasing. I was quite happy with that as it meant lean tissue was replacing fat. I was building muscle and didn’t have any pain.

I thought I’d kick it up a notch and really drop the fat and get back into running. Bodybuilders would do cardio for longer periods and sometimes twice a day to shed the fat. So, I figured I’d start doing long runs (just doing the cardio longer). I had a period of about a month of running 8 miles at a time. I dreamed of running the Western Endurance 100. I kept my diet and weight routine the same.

There was a problem though. Actually, more than one. Luckily my back didn’t bother me as I had that figured out, but my knees started to hurt again. My calcaneal tendon (Achilies heal) started to bother me. And, to top it off, I was losing muscle! I regained 2% of body fat and lost weight! I got fatter! I had to do this measurement quite a few times to make sure it was correct. It was.

I have since dropped the LSD and moved into sprints (barefooted!) and brief but intense strength sessions. I have regained my gains in the body fat department. In short, all of this added up to a conclusion that LSD wasn’t for me.

Now I should state that walking long distances is a different story altogether.

While Mother’s Day may seem like an ordinary holiday or some effort by card companies to increase sales, it comes at a poignant time for me.

I have multiple mothers in my life: Grandmothers, great aunts, aunts, friends, my wife, her mother and my own stepmother and birth mother. There are a great many things about them which reminds me of their uniqueness and specialness which has had an impact on me throughout my life.

As a young boy, the complete, gentle and loving acceptance of my birth mother is something that has stayed with me. The strength of my stepmother as she took me as a wild teenage boy has also stayed with me. I remember my Aunt, a wonderful woman who has since passed, took me as a young boy and sought to fill the role of grandmother since both my grandmothers had passed either before I was born or just after. My great aunt also took me in and sought to fill the place her sister was supposed to fill. My wife, with her constant focus on the goodness that should surround our children, brings that same gentleness and care to me and our home.

In each of these mothers, it was the caring they brought. It was and is their gentle presence surrounding me and their own children. It is a good thing, a very good thing.

All this care, this softness tempers me for the better. I believe I am better for all this good influence on me. I’m more gentle than I would otherwise be. I’ve been lucky to have those gentle mothers in my life reminding me of the good nurturing I was fortunate to know.

On Mother’s Day, I’m thankful to all the mothers who’ve come to me in their way. I love them all.

When I ride the MUNI in San Francisco, I find myself very aware of the good fortune that has come upon me in recent years. Public transport is often a sure grounding in the reality of human suffering. I can see why some people choose commonality and others revile it.

Living near Market Street in San Francisco, I am often exposed to people in despair shouting incoherent, angry words. The shopping carts filled up completely with blankets, bags, items that could still be of use, etc. It is definitely a sight; although, far from an enjoyable one.

I remember a man sleeping on the street. As I came closer I looked at his face. He was actually awake but squinting at people through his sunglasses like a child who is pretending to be sleeping. I imagined he was like a child in mind. Stunted somewhere along his way towards adulthood. Another day, as he was being chastened for prowling through rubbish, I heard him screaming in retort about how Sandra Day O’Conner somehow will vindicate him. From my perspective and probably those who have the ability to read blogs, it was a bizarre response.

I wonder about his life and how he came to be that way. I’d like to make sure that if I die before my children are self-sufficient that their fate would never come to be like his.

Walking through Union Square, I noticed a woman dressed in a fancy but wild way. She was speaking in short terse tones and I could tell she was angry. I looked at her as I was trying to understand if she was in fact talking to herself or chiding someone on a phone. She looked very wealthy and had a shopping bag full of fine hats. I think only someone with access to an unlimited supply of funds would have such hats. As I came closer, it was clear she was not speaking to anyone in particular but was just insulting people as they went by. For me, she held up her hand to block my face from hers and said something to the effect of “I don’t want to see a talking head on top of a walking corpse…” Yes, it was something like that. It was rude, and it was a bit sick. I imagined that she had been in luxury in most of her life and was now somewhat stranded with the common folk. Or, maybe she was mentally ill. I would put my money on the latter. After a few more steps, I decided not to keep her vileness she wanted to pass to me. Although, some of it has remained as I am writing of it now. Writing can serve the purpose of emptying the mind. So perhaps it is fitting and proper to write about it.

Of all the images I have conveyed, I am so glad that those are not the images people see when they see me or when I see me. I know times will change and things will happen, but for now I feel quite fortunate and thankful.

Now, that I’ve accomplished what I consider fitness. I think it’s time to move on. I will continue to be active and fit, but it’s not my life’s focus. It’s actually less than 20 min of my day and having a conscious choice to be healthy in my decisions (skip the coca-cola and waffles, walk or ride the bicycle instead of driving the car, etc.).

I actually have a fair amount of other things in my life: kids, wife, house, car, job, dog, etc. I find I am much more interested in the mysteries that go on unquestioned. Fitness and health was a mystery; it’s been solved now. Evolutionary fitness/diet and Crossfit are super answers. I call them super answers because they are by far the best answers out of a multitude.

There are so many other mysteries to investigate. As a result, I’m changing the focus of this writing to be more aligned with the multitude of mysteries as opposed to one particular one.

Check out this study on fast food consumption.

Why? Because of these comments from the study:

• That signs of liver damage were linked to carbohydrates was another key finding, he said. “It was not the fat in the hamburgers, it was rather the sugar in the coke,” he said.
• “The study showed that the increase in saturated fat correlated with the increase in healthy cholesterol,” he said.